logo
Cisco Talos report shows LLMs are being weaponised by cybercriminals

Cisco Talos report shows LLMs are being weaponised by cybercriminals

Tahawul Tech4 days ago
A comprehensive report from Cisco Talos has shown that Large Language Models are being increasingly weaponised to launch cyberattacks at scale. Cisco Talos has observed a growing use of uncensored, jailbroken and criminal-designed LLMs to support phishing, malware development, and other malicious activities.
The findings also highlight how both custom-built and jailbroken (modified) versions of LLMs are being used to generate malicious content at scale, signalling a new chapter in the cyber threat landscape.
The report explores how threat actors are bypassing built-in safeguards legitimate AI tools use, creating harmful alternatives that cater to criminal demands.
These unregulated models can produce phishing emails, malware, viruses and even assist in scanning websites for vulnerabilities. Some LLMs are being connected to external tools such as email accounts, credit card checkers, and more to streamline and amplify attack chains.
Commenting on the report's findings, Fady Younes, Managing Director for Cybersecurity at Cisco Middle East, Africa, Türkiye, Romania and CIS, stated: 'While large language models offer enormous potential for innovation, they are also being weaponised by cybercriminals to scale and refine their attacks. This research highlights the critical need for AI governance, user vigilance, and foundational cybersecurity controls. By understanding how these tools are being exploited, organisations can better anticipate threats and reinforce their defenses accordingly. With recent innovations like Cisco AI Defense, we are committed to helping enterprises harness end-to-end protection as they build, use, and innovate with AI.'
Cisco Talos researchers documented the emergence of malicious LLMs on underground forums, including names such as FraudGPT, DarkGPT, and WhiteRabbitNeo. These tools are advertised with features like phishing kit generation and ransomware creation, alongside card verification services.
Interestingly, even the criminal ecosystem is not without its pitfalls – many so-called 'AI tools' are also scams targeting fellow cybercriminals.
Beyond harmful models, attackers are also jailbreaking legitimate AI platforms using increasingly sophisticated techniques. These jailbreaks aim to bypass safety guardrails and alignment training to produce responses that would normally be blocked.
The report also warns that LLMs themselves are becoming targets, as attackers are inserting backdoors into downloadable AI models to function as per the attacker's programming when activated. As a result, models using external data sources to find information are exposed to risks if threat actors tamper with the sources.
Cisco Talos' findings underscore the dual nature of emerging technologies – offering powerful benefits but also introducing new vulnerabilities. As AI becomes more commonplace for enterprises and consumer systems, it is essential that security measures evolve in parallel. This includes scanning for tampered models, validating data sources, monitoring abnormal LLM behavior, and educating users on the risks of prompt manipulation.
Cisco Talos continues to lead the global cybersecurity community by sharing actionable intelligence and insights.
The full report, Cybercriminal Abuse of Large Language Models, is available at https://talosintelligence.com/
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Huawei expands in-car ecosystem with Anghami and Nabd partnerships at HDC 2025
Huawei expands in-car ecosystem with Anghami and Nabd partnerships at HDC 2025

Gulf Business

timean hour ago

  • Gulf Business

Huawei expands in-car ecosystem with Anghami and Nabd partnerships at HDC 2025

Huawei Consumer Cloud Services has signed two strategic Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with leading regional digital content platforms, Anghami and Nabd, during the Huawei Developer Conference 2025 (HDC 2025). The agreements aim to strengthen Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) for Car by offering localised, reliable, and engaging infotainment solutions tailored for global automakers. Deepening regional integration for connected vehicles The partnerships tap into the regional influence of two major MENA platforms: Anghami, the region's largest music streaming service, and Nabd, the top Arabic news aggregator. Both will deliver their content via HMS for Car, enabling auto manufacturers to provide enhanced, locally relevant user experiences inside connected vehicles. Anghami, which boasts a catalogue of over 57 million tracks and deep insight into Arabic music preferences, will now offer its music content through Huawei's in-car services. This marks a continuation of a long-standing relationship. Since 2020, Anghami has integrated with Huawei Mobile Services and promoted its presence through HUAWEI AppGallery across the Middle East and Africa. In 2021, it launched a HarmonyOS app for Huawei smartwatches and followed it with a dedicated app version for the Huawei Watch 5 in 2025. With the new MoU, Anghami will help create a robust music ecosystem within HMS for Car. Read: Nabd, which serves over 32 million users globally, delivers personalised Arabic news, live sports scores, market data, weather forecasts, TV streaming, and more. Through its partnership with Huawei, Nabd will offer localised news content and multilingual services for HMS for Car, enriching the platform's media offerings. The collaboration builds on Nabd's earlier work with Huawei since 2021, including HMS media kit integration and brand expansion via the AppGallery. HMS for Car continues its innovation push Beyond partnerships, The collaboration with Anghami and Nabd underscores Huawei's goal to build a rich and locally attuned in-car ecosystem. By joining forces with trusted regional platforms, Huawei is enhancing the relevance and depth of its services for drivers and passengers across the globe. Looking ahead, Huawei plans to scale its ecosystem further by onboarding more regional and international content partners, delivering increasingly personalised and immersive digital experiences within connected vehicles.

HPE reimagines hybrid IT operations with GreenLake Intelligence
HPE reimagines hybrid IT operations with GreenLake Intelligence

Zawya

timean hour ago

  • Zawya

HPE reimagines hybrid IT operations with GreenLake Intelligence

GreenLake Intelligence adds new agents for networking, observability, cloud costs, sustainability and workload optimization—all possible through HPE's comprehensive hybrid cloud technology stack New HPE Aruba Networking Central agentic mesh autonomously analyzes network and security conditions, providing precise analysis and actionable remediation HPE OpsRamp Software delivers agentic AIOps with AI-generated dashboards and intuitive, context-aware guidance and recommendations HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000 offers agentic AI-powered storage with upcoming support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers New HPE CloudOps Software sets a fast path for unified hybrid cloud operations powered by agentic AIOps. HPE CloudPhysics Plus energizes partner opportunities in hybrid modernization with expansive multi-runtime, multicloud infrastructure assessments Dubai, United Arab Emirates – HPE Discover Las Vegas 2025 – HPE (NYSE: HPE) today announced a transformational vision for hybrid IT operations with ultimate simplicity through GreenLake Intelligence, a new agentic AI framework for hybrid operations. Through a unified infusion of agentic AIOps across almost every infrastructure layer, HPE is transforming GreenLake cloud into an agentic-AI-powered hybrid cloud. The enterprise is entering a new AI-native era. Every organization wants to innovate faster—but most are constrained by legacy infrastructure, growing technical debt, and the complexity of managing sprawling hybrid environments. The intersection of AIOps and agentic AI presents an opportunity for organizations to overcome these legacy challenges and transform their operations and enterprises. 'HPE is reimagining hybrid IT as only we can do, catapulting organizations from the era of hybrid complexity to the era of agentic-AI-powered cloud operations,' said Antonio Neri, president and CEO, at HPE. 'HPE's new vision for hybrid IT is fueled by agentic intelligence at every layer of infrastructure, so enterprises can realize their boldest ambitions and achieve previously impossible levels of IT operations performance and efficiency.' HPE sets vision for ultimate hybrid simplicity through agentic AIOps with GreenLake Intelligence: The new GreenLake Intelligence agentic AI framework sets a bold vision for transforming hybrid IT through a unified hybrid cloud operating model powered by agentic AIOps. Built from the ground up and tightly integrated across HPE's comprehensive hybrid cloud technology stack, GreenLake Intelligence solves siloed and manual workflows, troubleshooting delays and underutilized IT resources, and reduces the burden on overextended IT teams. Accessed through GreenLake Copilot, GreenLake Intelligence will deploy AI agents that communicate and reason with context in real-time across storage, networking, compute and virtualized resources, as well as hybrid cloud cost operations, observability, sustainability and business services. HPE Aruba Networking transforms AI-powered network operations with new agentic mesh and networking copilot: Built on the GreenLake Intelligence framework, HPE is incorporating new agentic mesh technology into its cloud-scale network management system, HPE Aruba Networking Central. Accessed through the new multi-modal, conversational networking copilot, HPE Aruba Networking Central can provide precise root-cause analysis and guided or automated remediation for complex network and security issues. HPE's latest networking advancement is powered by an array of network-specific reasoning agents leveraging a collection of models context-tuned for security-first, AI-powered networking. HPE OpsRamp Software expands agentic operations copilot: Launched in 2024, the OpsRamp operations copilot now enables agentic automation for IT operations across full-stack infrastructure with a goal of faster detection and remediation. While maintaining human in the loop oversight, OpsRamp will enable key agentic capabilities including conversational product help and agentic command center that enables AI/ML based alerts, incident management and root-cause assistance. Through GreenLake Intelligence, the OpsRamp operations copilot is a multi-domain agentic system that will enable use cases like root-cause analysis, explainability, capacity planning, and more by coordinating systems such compute, network, storage, virtualization, and other software layers. HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000 offers agentic AI-powered storage with upcoming support for Model Context Protocol servers (MCP): At HPE Discover Las Vegas 2025, HPE is previewing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers natively built into the X10000, showcasing agentic-AI powered storage. By connecting GreenLake Intelligence with the X10000 through MCP servers, HPE can enable developers and admins to orchestrate data management and operations through GreenLake Copilot or natural-language interfaces. Additionally, connecting the built-in data intelligence layer of X10000 with internal and external AI agents ensures AI workflows are fed with unstructured data and metadata-based intelligence. New GreenLake cloud capabilities build on agentic AI foundation HPE is enhancing GreenLake cloud services for FinOps and sustainability and adding new capabilities for workload planning and capacity management. These services will be integrated into GreenLake Intelligence. New workload and capacity optimizer provides a unified solution to manage workloads and hardware assets for best cost, resilience and sustainability, spanning HPE compute, storage and networking technologies, virtual machines and multivendor third-party IT infrastructure. provides a unified solution to manage workloads and hardware assets for best cost, resilience and sustainability, spanning HPE compute, storage and networking technologies, virtual machines and multivendor third-party IT infrastructure. Consumption analytics have been extended to further help enterprises control costs. New features provide proactive spend anomaly alerts, FinOps Open Cost and Usage SpecificationTM (FOCUS) exports that enable chargeback, and recommendations for cost-focused infrastructure changes including downsizing and decommissioning virtual machines. have been extended to further help enterprises control costs. New features provide proactive spend anomaly alerts, FinOps Open Cost and Usage SpecificationTM (FOCUS) exports that enable chargeback, and recommendations for cost-focused infrastructure changes including downsizing and decommissioning virtual machines. HPE Sustainability Insight Center now offers predictive sustainability forecasting and a managed service provider mode that includes tailored sustainability metrics to monitor and reduce hardware-related carbon footprints. HPE delivers fast path to unified hybrid cloud operations with HPE CloudOps Software HPE simplifies the creation of a unified hybrid cloud operating model with the new HPE CloudOps Software suite, bringing together OpsRamp, HPE Morpheus Enterprise Software and HPE Zerto Software. Available standalone or as part of the suite, these software applications provide automation, orchestration, governance, data mobility, data protection and cyber resiliency across multivendor, multicloud, multi-workload infrastructure. HPE Services now offers enhanced services to accelerate the adoption of CloudOps. The HPE Service portfolio operates across the full customer lifecycle from Day -1 consulting through Day 0 planning, Day 1 implementation and integration to Day 2 operation. Additionally, CloudOps is available as a service managed by HPE for customers. Combined with comprehensive professional services designed to simplify adoption of cloud operations technologies, customers can effortlessly optimize resources across multiple cloud providers. New tools and programs deliver strategic, streamlined approach to hybrid IT modernization The new HPE CloudPhysics Plus assessment tool offers a comprehensive approach to hybrid IT modernization with automated analysis and recommendations for workload placement, asset utilization and infrastructure modernization. CloudPhysics Plus builds on the virtualization analysis capabilities of the CloudPhysics and now extends to multiple runtimes across on-premises, multicloud, and cloud-native environments – including Hyper-V, bare metal, Kubernetes and public cloud environments. The new assessment tool is available with a free assessment from channel partners and HPE sales. GreenLake launches the new HPE Cloud Commit program, a flexible purchasing model that provides GreenLake customers with the opportunity to make long-term, predictable commitments to their investments and to unlock discounts and value-add services and software. HPE Financial Services simplifies hybrid modernization with flexible financing HPE Financial Services (HPEFS) supports enterprises from day one with a new zero percent financing program for CloudOps, and standalone Morpheus, OpsRamp and Zerto, allowing customers to spread the costs over the license term, annually, up to 3 years, at no additional cost. HPEFS is also introducing a new financing program for the HPE Alletra Storage portfolio—including HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000—that provides up to 10 percent savings versus traditional purchasing and includes no payments for the first two months. HPEFS also has a broad set of financing and IT lifecycle services to help accelerate hybrid modernization with HPE GreenLake and services for sustainably decommissioning technology. Availability GreenLake Intelligence will be delivered through ongoing continuous innovation across the HPE portfolio. The GreenLake Copilot beta will be available in the third quarter of 2025. HPE Aruba Networking Central with agentic mesh will be available starting in the third quarter of 2025. HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000 with Model Context Protocol support is planned for the second half of 2025. New enhancements to HPE OpsRamp Software will be available in the fourth quarter of 2025. HPE CloudPhysics Plus assessment tool will be available in the fourth quarter of 2025. HPE Cloud Ops Software will be available in the fourth quarter of 2025. About HPE HPE (NYSE: HPE) is a leader in essential enterprise technology, bringing together the power of AI, cloud, and networking to help organizations achieve more. As pioneers of possibility, our innovation and expertise advance the way people live and work. We empower our customers across industries to optimize operational performance, transform data into foresight, and maximize their impact. Unlock your boldest ambitions with HPE. Discover more at Media Contact: Ronak Thakkar, Senior Vice President, FleishmanHillard.

Qatar: Kahramaa completes smart electricity meter installation
Qatar: Kahramaa completes smart electricity meter installation

Zawya

timean hour ago

  • Zawya

Qatar: Kahramaa completes smart electricity meter installation

Doha: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has completed the installation of smart electricity meters across all regions of the country, marking a significant milestone in the national drive towards digital transformation in utility services. Senior Smart Meter Engineer in the Customer Services Department at Kahramaa Eng. Maryam Abdullah Muftah has said that 100% of electricity meters have now been replaced with smart meters, while 50% of water meter installations under the smart metering project have also been completed. Speaking to Qatar TV recently, she said: 'This is a major transformational project that aligns with Qatar National Vision,' Muftah stated. 'The smart metering system has ushered in a new era in how we provide electricity and water services in the country.' She said that Kahramaa launched the smart meter initiative in 2021, beginning with electricity meters. 'With full nationwide deployment now achieved, the focus has shifted to completing the installation of smart water meters, with plans to achieve full coverage in the near future,' said Muftah. She said that the benefits of the smart meter rollout are already evident in Kahramaa's service model. Muftah highlighted that all services related to metering—such as initiating or transferring accounts—can now be processed completely online, without the need for customers to visit service centres. She said that everything has become digital and easier, not only for customers but also for the service teams at Kahramaa. 'Customers can now track their electricity and water consumption in real time. They are also able to access and pay their bills through the Kahramaa website or mobile application. Additionally, they can request billing statements and monitor their usage patterns conveniently from their devices,' said Muftah. Beyond convenience, smart meters play a crucial role in ensuring fairness and combating violations. According to Muftah, the meters have been instrumental in detecting violations of electricity and water regulations. 'Fortunately, we've observed a high level of compliance recently,' said Muftah, noting that the monitoring systems at Kahramaa's control centres have proven effective in identifying irregularities. The smart meter project is part of Kahramaa's broader digital transformation strategy, aimed at enhancing efficiency, transparency, and sustainability in line with Qatar's national objectives. The Smart Meters Project is a strategic mega initiative that includes over 12 sub-projects aimed at replacing all conventional meters with advanced digital meters for every consumer in Qatar. The ambitious plan targets full deployment of smart electricity meters by the end of 2025 and smart water meters by the end of 2027. These state-of-the-art smart meters are equipped with a wide range of features that enhance both user experience and operational efficiency. They allow real-time tracking of consumption, prepaid payment options, early fault detection at no extra cost, and faster property transfer and billing procedures. A dedicated mobile application informs customers of their consumption patterns, promoting better energy and water use management. At the core of the initiative lies a robust smart platform that forms the digital backbone for managing electricity and water data. © Dar Al Sharq Press, Printing and Distribution. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store